


orestes martyred, pylades slain

by Murf1307



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Korean War, M/M, Police Brutality, Protests, Riots, Suicide-by-Cop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 22:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Korean War kills nearly everyone Enjolras loves.  When he finally loses Grantaire to its bullets, he has nothing left to lose, and faces down a different set of guns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	orestes martyred, pylades slain

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by paige viscountdechagny's 50's au.

The wires from Korea are spaced out, for the most part. Enjolras hears about them from tearful mothers, bereaved sweethearts, fathers who want to be proud of their fallen sons.

He holds the names of his fallen friends close to his chest. He gets their initials tattoo’d on the inside of his thigh at the sketchy little parlor where Montparnasse still does business, and doesn’t talk about them, even as he writes letters and petitions and picket signs, even as he constructs careful arguments and launches them at politicians who think he’s too pretty to be real.

He writes letters of another kind, too, sends them once a week whether or not he’s heard back.  _Dear R,_  they all begin, and the endings evolve over the year and a half they’re half a world apart, from  _sincerely_  to  _yours_ to  _all my love_  and always, always not properly signed.

Now and then he hears back. Grantaire’s letters are short, unguarded, full of complaints and expletives and anger, and Enjolras knows that means  _I miss you_  as surely as the one time Grantaire writes it out.

There is a protest the day after another letter comes. But this letter isn’t from Grantaire — it’s from his sister Josephine.

Grantaire is dead. Stomach wound, about three weeks ago now.

Enjolras, as always, goes to see Montparnasse.

The inside of his thigh is still red and raw and bandaged and chafing when he stands, radiant in his long, beribboned hair and Grantaire’s high school ring, and pontificates to a crowd that’s big enough to draw police but not big enough to change the world.

It turns into a riot so easily.

Enjolras is unprepared for this. He’s unprepared for the hoses and the riot shields and the way the police spare nothing, but he knows what he needs to do; he knows that if Grantaire had to die fighting for something he didn’t believe in, he’ll gladly die making a stand about a war that they have no place in.

There is so much death, he thinks as he sees an officer loading a gun, and he wonders as he wades through the violence, throwing aside officers, drenched and in agonies, how many lives it will take to end it all.

The police officer with the loaded gun takes aim. Enjolras looks him in the eyes, drawn to his considerable full height, posture perfect as finishing school, and is silent.

Silence falls, as though his stepping forward to stare down the barrel of that gun has temporarily stopped the melee.

There is fear in the officer’s eyes — he isn’t any older than Enjolras, really. He’s probably never killed before. But there’s no way for him to fail that now, because Enjolras is too close for him to miss the shot without it being obvious.

Click-click go more guns. Enjolras has unsettled them all, and he’ll die for doing so.

He tosses a broken picket sign to the ground.

It clatters in the silence and the boy-cop jumps, finger slipping on the trigger.

The first bullet lodges in Enjolras’s belly. Enjolras smiles, curls forward to keep from falling, bleeds, and takes a step closer.

The other guns do what the first couldn’t.

And Enjolras falls, still smiling.


End file.
